La préhistoire de la France

2018

This course begins with the earliest humans in the area that is now France and traces the major peoples, dynasties, historical events, and literature to the beginning of the Renaissance. Students will study ethnic groups such as the Celts, the Romans, the Normans, and the Gauls to understand their role in the beginnings of French society. Readings will inform students of the important historical events and movements of the Middle Ages that not only led to the Renaissance, but that have lasting influences on French culture today. Students will read important early French texts such as the Chanson de Roland, Lais of Marie de France, Romans de la Table Ronde of Chretien de Troyes, and Livre de la Cité des Dames by Christine de Pizan. The thematic focus of the course will focus on connections between current elements of French culture and their foundations in early French civilization.

La Quina « aval » (Gardes-le-Pontaroux, Charente). Nouvelles données sur les comportements de subsistance à l’Aurignacien ancien = La Quina ‘aval’ (Gardes-le-Pontaroux, Charente. New data on types of subsistence behaviour during the Early Aurignacian / Marie-Cécile Soulier Étude typo-technologique et pétro-archéologique des grattoirs Caminade. Première synthèse d’un outil caractéristique de l’Aurignacien récent du Sud-Ouest de la France = Typo-technological and petro-archeological Study of Caminade endscrapers. A first synthesis of a typical tool of the Late Aurignacian from South-Western France / Solène Caux Les Pyrénées au cours du Dernier Maximum Glaciaire. Un no man’s land badegoulien ? Nouvelles données sur l’occupation du piémont pyrénéen à partir du réexamen des industries solutréennes de l’abri des Harpons (Lespugue, Haute-Garonne) = The French Pyrenees during the Last Glacial Maximum. A Badegoulian No Man’s Land? New data on the human occupation of the Pyrenean foothills based on the reassessment of the Solutrean industries from Abri des Harpons (Lespugue, Haute-Garonne) / Sylvain Ducasse, Caroline Renard, Jean-Marc Pétillon, Sandrine Costamagno, Pascal Foucher, Cristina San Juan-Foucher & Solène Caux Technologie lithique et circulation des matières premières au Magdalénien moyen ancien. L’exemple de Moulin-Neuf (Saint-Quentin-de-Baron, Gironde) = Lithic technology and circulation of raw materials during the Early Middle Magdalenian: the example of Moulin-Neuf (Saint-Quentin-de-Baron, Gironde) / Anthony Sécher & Solène Caux L’occupation azilienne des Pinelles à Prigonrieux (Dordogne). Discussion autour d’un assemblage lithique de la seconde partie de l’Allerød = The Azilian settlement of Les Pinelles (Prigonrieux, Dordogne). Discussion concerning a lithic assemblage from the second part of the Allerød interstadial / Ludovic Mevel, Ewen Ihuel & Marion Rabanit Retoucher, pour quoi faire ? Réflexions fonctionnelle et méthodologique sur la place occupée par l’outillage brut dans l’économie du premier Mésolithique en Europe du Nord-Ouest = Use-wear and methodological considerations of the role of unretouched tools in the Early Mesolithic economy in North-Western Europe / Colas Guéret [Découvertes récentes] Beg-er-Vil ou la transformation d’un amas coquillier en habitat littoral = Beg-er-Vil or the metamorphosis of a shell midden into a coastal dwelling / Grégor Marchand & Catherine Dupont [Découvertes récentes] Des occupations d’altitude du Bronze ancien à la Haille de Pout dans le cirque de Troumouse (Gèdre, Hautes-Pyrénées) = Altitude Settlement from the Early Bronze Age at La Haille de Pout, Cirque de Troumouse (Gèdre, Hautes-Pyrénées) / Guillaume Saint-Sever & Maxime Remicourt [Résumé de thèse] (2015) - Des dernières sociétés néolithiques aux premières sociétés métallurgiques. Productions lithiques du quart nord-ouest de la France (IIIe-IIe millénaires av. notre ère) / Lolita Rousseau [Résumé de thèse] (2016) - Manipulations post-mortem du corps humain : implications archéologiques et anthropologiques / Jennifer Kerner [Résumé de thèse] (2016) - Potentiel fonctionnel des outils bifaciaux au Pléistocène moyen en contexte méditerranéen. Analyse de la structure et des macro-traces des outils bifaciaux de la Caune de l’Arago, Terra Amata, Orgnac 3 et du Lazaret / Cyril Viallet [Comptes rendus] Contact, circulation et échange dans les sociétés du passé : contributions de l’étude des matières dures animales / Laure Fontana [Comptes rendus] Bahn P. G. (2016) - L’Art de l’époque glaciaire / Elena Man-Estier [Comptes rendus] Balzeau A. et Roudier E. (2016) - Qui était Néandertal ? / Christine Couture [Comptes rendus] Joussaume R. (2016) - Palets et minches de Gargantua. Mégalithisme dans le Centre-Ouest de la France / Jean-Marc Large [Comptes rendus] Joussaume R. et Cros J.-P. (2017) - Mégalithes d’hier et d’aujourd’hui en Éthiopie / Christian Jeunesse [Comptes rendus] Favory F. et Van der Leeuw S., dir. (2016) - Voyage dans l’archéologie spatiale anglo-saxonne / Thomas Perrin

World Archaeology 49/2, 2017

The concept of the chaîne opératoire was popularized in the English-speaking world for the first time in the Archaeological Review from Cambridge in 1990. At that time, the history of the integration of this concept into French prehistory had begun. It would take a few years for this process to be successfully completed and more years for the history of research in lithic technology to take this into account. However, the concept and its history have, since the 1990s, been the subject of particularly intriguing writing and rewriting issues. This article presents the state of knowledge on this matter 1) by exposing what could be called the ‘official’ version of this history and 2) by correcting it with concrete historiographical facts gathered in the literature. In doing so, it also speculates on the context and motivations of scholars involved in these projects of writing the concept of the chaîne opératoire.

Journal of Quaternary Science, 2020

The grand abri at La Ferrassie (France) has been a key site for Palaeolithic research since the early part of the 20th century. It became the eponymous site for one variant of Middle Palaeolithic stone tools, and its sequence was used to define stages of the Aurignacian, an early phase of the Upper Palaeolithic. Several Neanderthal remains, including two relatively intact skeletons, make it one of the most important sites for the study of Neanderthal morphology and one of the more important data sets when discussing the Neanderthal treatment of the dead. However, the site has remained essentially undated. Our goal here is to provide a robust chronological framework of the La Ferrassie sequence to be used for broad regional models about human behaviour during the late Middle to Upper Palaeolithic periods. To achieve this goal, we used a combination of modern excavation methods, extensive geoarchaeological analyses, and radiocarbon dating. If we accept that Neanderthals were responsible for the Châtelperronian, then our results suggest an overlap of ca. 1600 years with the newly arrived Homo sapiens found elsewhere in France.

2020

Journal of Quaternary Science Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd The grand abri at La Ferrassie (France) has been a key site for Palaeolithic research since the early part of the 20th century. It became the eponymous site for one variant of Middle Palaeolithic stone tools, and its sequence was used to define stages of the Aurignacian, an early phase of the Upper Palaeolithic. Several Neanderthal remains, including two relatively intact skeletons, make it one of the most important sites for the study of Neanderthal morphology and one of the more important data sets when discussing the Neanderthal treatment of the dead. However, the site has remained essentially undated. Our goal here is to provide a robust chronological framework of the La Ferrassie sequence to be used for broad regional models about human behaviour during the late Middle to Upper Palaeolithic periods. To achieve this goal, we used a combination of modern excavation methods, extensive geoarchaeological analyses, and ...

Diversité des territoires d’origine des parures en coquillage mésolithiques de la grotte Rochefort (Saint-Pierre-sur-Erve, Mayenne) / Catherine Dupont, Stéphan Hinguant & Didier Merle The Limpets and Winkles’ Enigma. Premier aperçu sur la malacofaune marine des occupations mésolithiques et néolithiques de la colline Saint-Charles à Marseille (VIIIe millénaire-IVe millénaire av. J.-C.) / Ingrid Sénépart, Nicolas P. Weydert, Denis Dubesset & Jean-Philippe Sargiano Un village chasséen dans le Sud de la France : Cazan « le Clos du Moulin », Vernègues (Bouches-du-Rhône) / Clément Moreau, Vanessa Léa, Claire Delhon, Frédéric Magnin, Luke Howarth, Jimmy Linton, Lucas Pacotte, Sylvain Foucras, Cristiano Nicosia, François-Xavier Le Bourdonnec, Julie Gerez & Ingrid Sénépart Le douzième dolmen de Barnenez : destructions et reconstructions au sein d’une nécropole mégalithique / Luc Laporte, Florian Cousseau, Primitiva Bueno Ramírez, Rodrigo Balbín Behrmann (de) & Philippe Gouézin Origine des animaux sur pied, circuit de la viande : la formation des assemblages osseux dans le contexte d’une fête traditionnelle à Sumba (Indonésie). Une enquête ethnoarchéologique / Christian Jeunesse & Anthony Denaire Systèmes de réparation, de réutilisation et de recyclage des vaisselles céramiques protohistoriques de Corse / Kewin Peche-Quilichini, Maxime Rageot & Martine Regert [Découvertes récentes] Le Riparo Mochi (Balzi Rossi, Ventimiglia, Italie) : les nouvelles fouilles / Stefano Grimaldi, Fabio Santaniello & Elisabetta Starnini [Découvertes récentes] Découverte d’un nouveau gisement du Magdalénien moyen à Enval (Vic-le-Comte, Puy-de-Dôme) / Frédéric Surmely, Sandrine Costamagno, Jay D. Franklin, Maureen A. Hays, avec la collaboration de, François Chevrier, Stéphane Madelaine, Gérard Vernet & Ilaria Patania [Résumé de thèse] (2016) À l’Est quoi de nouveau ? L’exploitation technique de l’élan en Russie centrale au cours de la transition entre pêcheurs-chasseurs-cueilleurs sans céramique (« Mésolithique récent ») et avec céramique (« Néolithique ancien ») / Julien Treuillot [Résumé de thèse] (2016) – Les industries en quartz de Kovačevo (Bulgarie), Madžari (ARYM), Promachonas-Topolniča et Dikili Tash (Grèce) : reconstitution des systèmes techniques dans le contexte de la Néolithisation de l’Europe du Sud-Est / Nicolas Tardy [Résumé de thèse] (2016) – L’exploitation animale au IVe millénaire avant notre ère en Allemagne centrale : les sites de Wallendorf et Salzmünde dans leur contexte régional / Svenja Höltkemeier [Comptes rendus] Brigand R. et Weller O., dir (2015) – Archaeology of salt. Approaching an invisible past. Leyde, Sidestone Press, 228 p. ISBN 978-90-8890-303-8 / Marie-Yvane Daire

It has long been recognised that archaeological theory has been given much less attention in France than in other (mainly Anglo-American) countries (e.g. Scarre 1999). This small book represents an early exception. Préhistoire du futur ('Prehistory of the future') was first published in 1979 by the now defunct Éditions Bretagnes. The limited number of copies quickly sold out, and over the following decades the book gained fame within the community of French prehistorians and students for both its thought-provoking content and its elusive presence. Now, two young archaeologists, Sébastien Plutniak and Gwenolé Kerdivel, have convinced the author, Pierre Gouletquer, to re-publish the book to make it more widely available. The only new elements are a foreword by Plutniak and the transcript of an interview with the author at the end of the volume. Pierre Gouletquer is now a retired archaeologist from western Brittany. Trained as a geologist, he worked as a CNRS researcher (Centre national de la recherche scientifique) from 1964 to 2004. His main research focused on the Mesolithic period of Brittany, using large-scale fieldwalking surveys over multiple years in the Département du Finistère. Involving both students and local enthusiasts, Gouletquer pioneered what is now called community archaeology. He can be regarded as a non-conventional prehistorian, whose work concentrated on producing archaeological information as much as questioning archaeological practices. Préhistoire du futur presents the author's personal reflections on the discipline. Do not expect references to philosophers or theoretical archaeologists: the style is non-academic (with no references), deliberately provocative, and often humorous, supported by several comic-style drawings by the author. The book originated as a reaction against the institutional archaeology of the time and its focus on excavation and artefact studies, and against the claim that archaeology is a science (rather, for Gouletquer, archaeology is an art of storytelling). The first chapter tells how, after a PhD on Iron Age salt production based on related artefacts, the author started ethno-archaeological fieldwork on traditional salt production techniques in Africa. This experience enabled him to explore aspects typically ignored in conventional archaeological research: social activities and relationships beyond material culture. From this time, the author 'ceased to be a prehistorian' (p. 30) and started to draw from other fields, such as geography and sociology, in order to design his own approach to prehistory. For Gouletquer, the solution starts with a change of scale: archaeologists should focus on 'territories' rather than isolated sites and artefacts, and should ideally live within the territory they

The Middle Palaeolithic in northwest Europe: multidisciplinary approaches

The Middle Palaeolithic begins around 300 ka BP ago, and ends around 40 ka BP. During more of 250 000 years, the whole Europe was occupied by Neandertal populations, which are characterized by very weak density and demography. The aim of the communication is to focus on the identities of the different cultural groups peopling northern France and to try to discern if “cultural provinces” could have existed in this area. Of course, data are distorsed with the few number of well-preserved and well-dated sites, especially for the saalian period of the Middle Palaeolithic. By and large, data are lacking for the isotopic stage 8, while the isotopic 7 is known by a few number of very important sites (Biache-Saint-Vaast, Therdonne,…). The understanding of peopling identities and modalities is clearer for the weichselien period, where differents cultural traditions seem to be identified during the Eemian, the Early weichselian, the Lower and Middle pleniglacials of the Weichselian. These distinctions are based on mixed technological and typological features, because retouched tools are not numerous enough for precise attribution to one or the other Bordes’typological facies. Human occupation in northern France is discontinuous, and influenced by several interactive factors as climatic and environmental changes, raw materials, presence of large fauna,… This overview shows that the Middle Paleolithic is not a long uniform period, but a dynamic one, with, undoubtely, emergences, colonisations or dispartions.

Journal of Quaternary Science, 2020

The grand abri at La Ferrassie (France) has been a key site for Palaeolithic research since the early part of the 20th century. It became the eponymous site for one variant of Middle Palaeolithic stone tools, and its sequence was used to define stages of the Aurignacian, an early phase of the Upper Palaeolithic. Several Neanderthal remains, including two relatively intact skeletons, make it one of the most important sites for the study of Neanderthal morphology and one of the more important data sets when discussing the Neanderthal treatment of the dead. However, the site has remained essentially undated. Our goal here is to provide a robust chronological framework of the La Ferrassie sequence to be used for broad regional models about human behaviour during the late Middle to Upper Palaeolithic periods. To achieve this goal, we used a combination of modern excavation methods, extensive geoarchaeological analyses, and radiocarbon dating. If we accept that Neanderthals were responsib...

2013

Following a recent quantitative and qualitative renewal of archaeological research in the Quercy, this region has become particularly favourable for analyses of the cultural dynamics of Mesolithic societies in southwestern France. These dynamics, principally associated with the evolution of projectile points, are most clearly manifest in the appearance of broad weapon elements (trapeze microliths and other evolved points) at the beginning of the seventh millennium cal BC. Through still poorly understood scenarios, these pieces replace narrow weapon elements (geometric or not). We have developed a research program concerning several thousands of objects recovered at five recently or currently excavated sites in order to obtain a better understanding of these evolutionary processes and to attempt to determine their modalities, rhythms and signification. In this paper, we present the current state of this work and the results obtained for the earliest phases of the Mesolithic. Key-word...